It has been a while since I have gone off on a good rant, but today, I have had about enough. I am keenly aware that I make mistakes often in this space and while I try to avoid them, they are inevitable. I am human after all (just ask my wife; wait, that might be a bad idea, so just trust me). I rely heavily on Grammarly for both spelling and grammatical errors, but a few (many?) still sneak through.

But.

There is one “mistake” made daily in the wine industry but it is not a mistake or even an “honest mistake”; it’s just wrong. What is this egregious error that has me riled up into a full-blown tizzy this morning? Read the following sentence and if you are with me, it will make your skin crawl. If you think it is fine, you are part of the problem:

When choosing a wine, I prefer the more obscure varietals.

Many (I hope) of you know how painful that was to write. In fact, I considered finding an extant phrase to copy and paste so that they would not actually be “my” words. I realized, though, that I would still have to type the offensive word into Google and then spend the better part of 30 minutes (or more) finding the “perfectly horrible” example and that would end up being far worse (and a lot more depressing).

So here is another one (as much as it pains me):

What white wine varietals do you like?

Argh. Like fingernails on a chalkboard or, for me, the sound of styrofoam.*

*A quick aside: I am pretty sure I became more environmentally conscious because I cannot stand the touch or sound of styrofoam, which is, perhaps not so coincidentally, terrible for the planet.

Have you figured it out yet? It is right there out in the open. OK, one more, if I must:

Cabernet Sauvignon is my favorite varietal.

If you still are struggling to see what is wrong with the example sentences above, perhaps these will shed some light:

That particular politician is a menace to societal.

The problem with societal today is the incorrect use of adjectives.

To be even clearer, varietal is an adjective; variety is a noun. I have heard people whom I believe to be very smart misuse “varietal” on a regular basis. Unfortunately, I have also seen it in print on countless occasions. I like to think that the errors I make on this site (which are numerous, no doubt) are largely due to the fact that I have no editor (other than me, which clearly presents a conflict of interest). How this mistake gets by actual editors, people who are literally paid to correct mistakes, is beside me.

Corton-Charlemagne contains one variety: Chardonnay and it is one of the world’s greatest varietal wines.

I know there are others in the wine community who have a similar visceral reaction to the incorrect use of “varietal” but they are afraid to say anything. When a respected winemaker at a prestigious conference stands before a crowd and proclaims that “Pinot Noir is the world’s greatest varietal!” I quickly scan the room for the inevitable cringe that will pass across the face of another secret member of the grammar police and they reveal themselves if only briefly.

This is more, however, than the all-too-common incorrect subject versus object pronoun use (“The president sent letters to Ralph and I”; ugh) and don’t get me started about “myself”. No, this is more than that since it seems that people actually think “varietal” is the noun and “variety” is some magazine read by Hollywood types.

Now, I will acknowledge that there is a loophole here. While individual grape types (e.g., Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, etc.) are varieties, once they are bottled as a singular grape variety (e.g., Rodney Strong Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon), it is a varietal wine. Some people (not me) shorten this to simply “varietal” as Dr. Vinny claimed in 2017:

A “varietal” is a wine labeled with a single grape variety. In the U.S., that usually means that at least 75 percent of the wine is made from that grape variety. (Wine Spectator Online, Sept., 2017)

With all due respect to Dr. Vinny, the use of “varietal” here is only marginally acceptable since the word “wine” while omitted, is understood (i.e., “varietal wine”).

So, to recap, use “variety” when needing a noun:

What varieties are used to make champagne?

And use “varietal” when seeking an adjective:

What is the varietal composition of this champagne?

There. I feel better and hopefully, societal is in a better place, too.